Site Search Navigation

Site Navigation

Site Mobile Navigation

A Pattern of Rikers Guards Looking the Other Way

By Sewell Chan February 4, 2009 9:04 amFebruary 4, 2009 9:04 am

When two guards were accused last month of encouraging inmates in one Rikers Island jail to police themselves, leading to beatings and in one case the killing of an inmate, correction officials called the situation “an aberration” and said they had not seen such a case in other units involving other guards.

Governor Paterson and the leaders of the Legislature reached a long-delayed agreement on Tuesday to close the state’s $1.6 billion budget gap through spending cuts, tax increases and accounting devices. But before the end of March, the state must come up with $13 billion more in savings. [NYT]

Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver issued his strongest call yet for a major tax increase on the wealthy to help close the state’s $13 billion budget gap. “Is it fair to ask the people who make more to pay a little bit more in this time of crisis?” Mr. Silver wondered rhetorically. “We’ve done it before. There hasn’t been a catastrophe. It is certainly a viable option that has to be considered as we go forward for the next budget.” [New York Post]

In a surprise move, Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo has accepted an invitation to address the state’s Conservative Party on Monday, further fueling speculation that he may run for governor next year, The Post has learned. “We’ve never had a Cuomo at one of our events,” said the party chairman, Michael R. Long. [New York Post]

A New York man who is the surviving partner in a same-sex marriage is legally entitled to inherit his spouse’s estate, a Manhattan judge has ruled. The decision by Judge Kristin Booth Glen of Surrogate’s Court recognizing Craig Leiby as the sole heir of Ken Ranftle’s multimillion-dollar estate is believed to be the first of its kind in New York. [New York Post] (Also see The Daily News.)

The sightless man ripping Governor Paterson in a statewide television advertisement came forward Tuesrday to insist that the governor’s blindness had nothing to do with the decision to take part in the union-backed campaign. The man, Juan Pietri, caused a stir this week with his appearance in the 30-second ad criticizing Mr. Paterson’s proposed health care cuts. [New York Post]

A horde of angry protesters chanting, “This is what democracy looks like!” burst into a fancy ballroom to interrupt a speech Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg was delivering on the city’s economy Tuesday. The police arrested eight of the demonstrators for trespassing and disorderly conduct. [New York Post] (See related City Room blog post.)

Mayor Bloomberg’s Meals on Wheels reforms hit a bump in Queens this week, with hot food deliveries never reaching dozens of homebound elderly recipients, sources said Tuesday night. The mayor streamlined the food delivery system in the borough on Monday by cutting the number of providers from dozens to three, but that change has led to meals’ never reaching the elderly or arriving hours late. [New York Post]

Seeking to soften her anti-immigration reputation, Senator Kirsten E. Gillibrand promised immigrant advocates this week to support a moratorium on raids until Congress approves comprehensive changes. “We saw a very positive shift in attitude in the way that she looks at immigrant constituencies,” said Chung-Wha Hong, executive director of the New York Immigration Coalition, which met with Ms. Gillibrand on Monday. [Daily News]

The International brotherhood of Teamsters Local 237 will hold its first political forum for citywide candidates in the 2009 elections on April 18 at the Hilton New York. And you can bet pensions and health care benefits will be the hot topics of discussion. [Daily News]

In a step that Democrats hope will lay the groundwork for the most significant overhaul of the state’s drug penalties in a generation, a state commission on Tuesday recommended creating more uniform sentencing guidelines and allowing judges to send more drug offenders to treatment centers instead of prison. [NYT]

A St. John’s student who disappeared two weeks ago after a flight from her native North Carolina surfaced and admitted she was hiding out the whole time with a man she met on the plane. The student, Erica Desai, 19, dialed 911 from a Coney Island public phone after seeing news reports of her family’s frantic search. [New York Post]

A YouTube video in which a guerrilla subway artist known as Poster Boy all but thumbs his nose at the police as he slices and dices platform advertisements played a role in his downfall last week, investigators said. Law enforcement sources said transit detectives watched the 1 minute 45 second digital video on Jan. 1, in which the artist, now identified as Henry Matyjewicz, transplanted a giant demon face from a Subway restaurant ad onto the face of the actress Toni Collette. [New York Post]

Proposed new Buildings Department rules are aimed at preventing another crane collapse like the Upper East Side disaster in May that killed two construction workers, officials said Tuesday. The city wants to keep better track of critical tower crane parts, including their turntables, frames, booms, machine decks and other sections, Buildings Commissioner Robert D. LiMandri said. [New York Post] (See related City Room blog post.)

A Long Island teenager accused of participating in an attack that left an Ecuadorean immigrant dead is denying charges that he also assaulted other Hispanics. The teenager, Kevin Shea, pleaded not guilty yesterday to a new indictment. He and six fellow high-school students are accused of a series of attacks on Hispanics in the Patchogue-Medford area of eastern Long Island. The others previously pleaded not guilty. [New York Post]

A Touro College administrator who the authorities say masterminded a six-figure scheme for selling bogus degrees, transcripts and letters of recommendation in the college’s name is heading to prison after pleading guilty Tuesday in State Supreme Court in Manhattan. [New York Post]

A one-man crime wave from Massachusetts road-tripped it to Columbia University every weekend for the past two months — stealing wallets from gymnasium lockers and a dozen laptops, The Post has learned. The man, Frank Todd, 21, was grabbed on campus Monday after school security, armed with surveillance photos, spotted him walking around campus, sources said. [New York Post]

A peanut-linked health crisis that has sickened 550 people nationwide and is being blamed for killing an additional 8 has left 21 New Yorkers ill, state officials said Tuesday. Although none were in New York City, the outbreaks of peanut-related salmonella include one case in Nassau County and two in Suffolk. The scare started last month. [New York Post]

An Academy Award-winning songwriter accused of drugging and raping an aspiring actress claims the woman agreed to have sex with him in his Upper East Side apartment. The songwriter, Joseph Brooks, who won the Oscar for the title song to the 1977 film “You Light Up My Life,” says the Seattle woman suing him for $5 million consented to their sexual encounter on March 5, 2008. [New York Post]

A Connecticut accountant was sentenced to a year in prison for stealing more than $5 million from clients, but dodged a much stiffer penalty because he helped put away two New York City police detectives linked to the mob. The accountant, Stephen Corso, faced more than seven years, but he received the lighter sentence at the urging of Bridgeport federal prosecutors. Mr. Corso was a key witness in the 2006 case against Detectives Louis Eppolito and Stephen Caracappa, who were convicted of working for the Luchese family. [New York Post]

A Brooklyn man was arrested on child pornography charges Tuesday after workers at a Midtown Sprint PCS told officers that they had spotted some disturbing photos on his cellphone. The man, Robert Scharff, 45, dropped off the phone at the West 34th Street Sprint store on Jan. 21 complaining that the Internet was not working kept getting error messages, according to a criminal complaint filed by Special Agent Michael Sabric of the F.B.I. [Daily News]

Housing & Economy

Square Feet: New York’s most elegant shopping corridor, the Gold Coast of Madison Avenue, from 57th Street to 72nd Street, is pockmarked with vacancies as retailers flee sky-high rents. More than two dozen retail spaces are on the market and are either empty now or about to be. Windows that once showcased hand-tooled leather suitcases are now plastered with for-rent signs. [NYT]

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has been struggling with the bad economy, and now its chairman, H. Dale Hemmerdinger, is struggling, too. Lenders are foreclosing on a Queens shopping mall developed and owned by his company, Atco Properties and Management, Mr. Hemmerdinger said on Tuesday. [NYT]

A multibillion-dollar deal to build office towers and apartments over the sprawling railyards on the West Side of Manhattan has been put off for at least a year, transportation authority officials said Tuesday. The authority and the Related Companies agreed to extend the Jan. 31 closing date of their contract for the Hudson Yards project by up to a year after the developer expressed concerns about coming up with a $50 million payment to start a 99-year lease for the property. [Daily News]

The Rainbow Room is over the Ciprianis. The Cipriani family has agreed to give up operations of the famed restaurant and night spot, and will clear out of the space by Aug. 1, court papers show. [New York Post]

Residents and community groups that want to stop a proposed city sanitation garage in SoHo filed a lawsuit Tuesday. The city has to vacate the current Sanitation Department unit on the Gansevoort Peninsula in Hudson River Park, under a 2005 legal settlement. [New York Post]

Two Queens hospitals facing bankruptcy need state aid to meet payrolls this week, but the Paterson administration has reportedly refused to bail out the ailing facilities. Caritas Health Care, which runs St. John’s Queens Hospital in Elmhurst and Mary Immaculate Hospital in Jamaica, has asked the state to come up with $36 million in rescue money before Friday. [Daily News]

They have free travel passes, but about half of the transportation authority’s board members with voting privileges missed most of the hearings on fare increases. Attendance tallies provided by the authority show that 8 of the 17 decision-makers have anemic attendance, with two or fewer appearances. [Daily News]

Plans to eliminate a key bus line in East New York would leave thousands of elderly residents stranded and scrambling for a way to get to doctors’ appointments, shopping, church or the bank, advocates for the elderly say. The B25, which runs from Downtown Brooklyn to Broadway Junction, is one of six borough bus lines set to be eliminated unless the transportation authority receives a large infusion of funds from the state. [Daily News]

Now all they need are pro athletes and furry mascots running the hallways. The city’s Department of Education is teaming with ESPN to create a new spin on career and technical high schools. [New York Post]

The new principal of the Hebrew Language Academy Charter School does not speak Hebrew. The principal, Maureen Gonzalez-Campbell, whose appointment was announced Monday, does speak Spanish. [Daily News]

The mayor will keep control of the schools but will have to share power on the board that sets general policy if the teachers union has its way. The proposal, which would have to be approved by union members Wednesday, would give a green light to unleash the union’s influential lobbying operation in Albany. [Daily News]

Parents want to know why 80 percent of the classrooms in a new school building are empty, when it is across the street from a school crammed with 800 students too many. Public School 19 in Corona, Queens, has 2,000 students — 800 over capacity. It uses four makeshift trailers in what used to be the playground. [Daily News]

Neediest Cases: Nadja Smith spends her days sending out résumés that emphasize her bachelor’s degree and foreign language skills. [NYT]

The snowboarding ramp put up in East River Park will draw 16 top pros of the sport Thursday, including the Olympic gold-medalist Shaun White, Travis Rice and Pat Moore, all competing for a $100,000 purse. [New York Post]

A meat supplier has a problem with Tavern on the Green. In papers filed in State Supreme Court in Manhattan, the London Meat Company says Tavern on the Green owes it $90,000 for unpaid shell steak, burger and chicken deliveries. [New York Post]

A California university let Chesley B. Sullenberger III, the pilot of US Airways Flight 1549, slide on a misplaced library book. He had a good excuse: losing it while saving 155 lives during his Hudson River splash landing. [New York Post]

When Floyd Bennett Field served as the city’s first municipal airport in the 1930s, an underground passenger tunnel connected the airport terminal to the tarmac. Sealed since 1941 as a safety precaution during World War II, the 300-yard Art Deco-inspired tunnel is getting a second look from the National Park Service, which plans to reopen it to visitors soon. [Daily News]

Faced with large budget cuts, the Brooklyn Public Library has quietly closed its doors on Sundays. Five branches around the borough and the Central Library at Grand Army Plaza ended the seventh day of service in early January. [Daily News]

Every day, angry customers stop outside the offices of a shuttered shipping company that was supposed to send valuable packages to their families in the Dominican Republic. And every day, Queens and Brooklyn customers of D’Arias Shipping leave wondering where their packages — and company officials — are. [Daily News]

I’m not sure I’d describe the Floyd Bennett Field tunnels as “highly ornamental”, as did the News, but they are interesting and yes, Deco-inspired (as is the rest of the original terminal building, now the Ryan Visitors Center.)

I thought the tile work was reminiscent of the subway system, and there were even frames for advertising posters, just as in the subway tunnels.

I visited as part of Open House New York in October. (I have some pictures of the tunnel here, here, here, and here.) I’d think the National Park Service would have some serious work to do in order to open them to the public — it’s musty and damp down there, and the ranger who showed us around said they often flood when it rains.

What's Next

Looking for New York Today?

New York Today is still going strong! Though no longer on City Room, New York Today continues to appear every weekday morning, offering a roundup of news and events for the city. You can find the latest New York Today at nytoday.com or in the morning, on The New York Times homepage or its New York section. You can also receive it via email.

Lookin for Metropolitan Diary?

Metropolitan Diary continues to publish! Since 1976, Metropolitan Diary has been a place for New Yorkers, past and present, to share odd fleeting moments in the city. We will continue to publish one item each weekday morning and a round-up in Monday's print edition. You can find the latest entries at nytimes.com/diary and on our New York section online.

About

City Room®, a news blog of live reporting, features and reader conversations about New York City, has been archived. Send questions or suggestions by e-mail.